Daddys Stories

November 2018


 Daddys mind is not as clear as it once was. He has his moments where he loves to reminisce and then there are other times that he doesn’t talk at all and you wonder if he’s even in the room. He doesn’t appear to be listening to the conversations around him and he doesn’t contribute anything and if you ask him anything, he gets confused. 
But I want to write the stories as he tells them because when he cant tell them anymore I will still be able to read it and think of him
One such story is the night that he went to jail for a bar fight. Another is the night that Raymond Boozer was born. I may get them a little mixed up because they are about the same people and maybe? close to the same time.
Raymond was born in Hughes Ar. And his mother, Meg was at the clinic giving birth. Alfred was with daddy, not sure what the details are but they got stopped by the police and they took Alfred to jail in Marianna. Daddy tried to tell them that they were trying to get to the clinic because his wife was having a baby, but the officer didn’t care. So daddy asked the officer where they were taking him but he wouldn’t tell him exactly where so daddy had to follow him. The officer sped down the roads and even turned on back roads but he didn’t lose daddy. The officer told Alfred that if that is Bobby behind us, he is going to jail for speeding when we get there. For some reason he changed his mind though when they arrived and daddy got Alfred (not sure if he had to bond him out or what) but they made it back to the clinic in time.
Another time, Bob, Alfred and Meg were all at a bar in Hughes and 3 guys around the bar were talking about Meg and trying to hit on her. Alfred was very angry but he was already in some kind of trouble with the law so he was in a dilemma of what to do. He didn’t want to get into a fight and go to jail. But they needed to shut up. Evidently Bob knew them and went over and told them that she was his cousins wife and they needed to shut up. One of the guys raised his hand to hit him and Bob cold cocked him. Unfortunately he also had a beer can in that hand and it cut the guys face pretty bad. That’s the only time I can remember that my daddy went to jail. Mama still says it wasn’t his business and he shouldn’t have gotten involved. She worried about him all night not knowing where he was and she was at home with all of us. But he didn’t plan to fight because normally the guys wouldn’t fight him but it was 3 to 1. I think that daddy and the 3 guys all went to jail but someone came and got the others out soon after and daddy stayed all night until they let him out the next morning.
Another time when the guys were first going to Chicago for work, Alfred was going for the first time and Bob went over to get him. There wasn’t any work in Hughes or around it, so they would go up to Chicago for a year or so and come back. Or should I say some did. We went 3 or 4 times and came back. Uncle Bill and family went and came back but the others stayed. Uncle June came back when his kids were young teens and Uncle Fred came back when he retired. The same with Aunt Ruthie. 
Bob was going to pick up Alfred at Megs house and Meg was so upset that he was leaving her there and going to Chicago, and she couldn’t stop crying. This made her sister, Ruth Ann so angry and she blamed it all on Bob for taking him. When he got there to pick Alfred up, he got out of the car and walked around it to go in the house, and there stood Aunt Ruth Ann with a baseball ball bat. She swung that bat as hard as she could knocking Bob out, almost killing him. Daddy still gets mad about that when he talks about it but luckily I have only heard him mention it once or twice. He didn’t want to still be angry about it but thinking about it brought it all back.
The stories may get shorter or more confusing but I am going to try to write them as he tells them.

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